The effect of memes

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Memes are an important thing to our society and us meme lords are at the peak of the social media hierarchy. Memes are seen by people almost every day and are on all social media platforms such as Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter, etc. Except Facebook those memes don’t count. Facebook has been described by students as the old social media. And is the place where adults go. Statistics from statista.com show that 58.3 Facebook users are 25-34 years old being the most in age demographic. You know when you see a trend and then a month later your parents or someone find out about it. Facebook is like that because memes are found by older people on Facebook a month after the meme has been made

The first origin of memes was tracked back to 1976 in Richard Dawkins book “The Selfish Gene.” He proposed that memes are a unit of culture hosted in the minds of others. Now, this probably isn’t the meme you’re thinking about huh? You’re probably thinking about the “ha ha funny” one you saw on @TJ_The_DJ_Swag’s post on Instagram meme page this morning. Not a theory based completely on Darwinism but about mental thought. Meme comes from the Ancient Greek μιμητής (mimētḗs), translating to “imitator, pretender.” This definition is perfect for what a current day meme is, a picture and text above it to symbolize what is going on in the picture.

In the late 2000’s early 2010’s, There was a form of meme people now remember to know as “Rage Comics” these were a series of comics that have inspired so many recognizable faces like the Troll Face, Forever Alone, And Cereal Guy. This is the oldest meme interviewees say they remember these rage comics as the oldest memes. One sophomore student saying “I used to run home from school to go online just to read them”

Other memes popped up to such as Grumpy Cat, Bad Luck Brian, and Willy Wonka. Pictures would be posted with a “meme” font which is big white text with a black outlining. This Font was put over anything. Anything could be meme-ified popular shows and movies at the time such as The Office, Lost, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings.

Memes have changed since the first ones. Now, they are typically changing every month before the joke is considered old. Memes now are harsh. They’re being taken out left and right people are getting bored of memes very fast as the standard of memes have gotten 10 ft. higher and so many memes have happened people can’t do certain memes because new one come out every month and its most likely been done before.. A meme can come up and be popular then dead next month.

Piano cat in 2007 lasted a few years after is release, but the new equivalent Bongo cat, despite gaining a positive response, was only talked about for 2 months before people called it a dead meme. Bongo cat could play any instrument because he was animated even performing multiple songs by himself, with this why didn’t he have a longer span of life? Fun Fact: Piano Cat “Fatso” a was actually recorded 1984 and the video was uploaded to YouTube after she died in 1987. The video was uploaded in 2007 20 years after her death

The only memes that last more than 2 weeks are referred to as “Immortal memes” these memes are the only ones that have been relevant and are sought to always be relevant. There are only 2 known. “l ll ll l_” this is known as 1 of the 2 of the powerful memes and anyone who isolates themselves with memes should be able to tell you what it means. l ll ll l_ which in English translates to as “Loss” Is from a comic series called “ctrl+alt+del” written by Tim Buckley. This particular comic became very popular in the meme community all the way back in 2008 and raised in popularity. The second immortal meme is very powerful as by many who have seen this have felt energy emanates from him. Meme enthusiast already knows and refer to it as“him” exclaiming things like “I can feel his energy” and “I can’t see him but I can feel his energy” This meme is known as by google search engine as “You know we had to do it to em.” He has been photo shopped into many pictures just so it can be given his energy. Any meme that came out of 2016 is now considered dead but he still lives and is sought to keep living even though “he” got arrested for drug possession.